7/2 PBE Update: Doom Bots of Doom , WIP Sona Rework

The PBE has been updated and Doom Bots of Doom, our latest featured gameplay mode where you face off against bots with nightmarish new abilities, is up for testing! We also have a rework for Sona, updates to Mecha Aatrox, new portraits for a few of the SR update monsters, vfx changes for exhaust, and more!

Continue reading for more information!

(Warning: PBE Content is tentative and iterative - what you see may not reflect what eventually gets pushed to live servers! Manage your expectations accordingly. )

Our next featured game mode, the Doom Bots of Doom is now live and loose on PBE! Try them out and let us know what you think! We’re keen to get feedback from you guys.
There are three different levels (of doom) for you to challenge. When facing 2 & 5 bomb difficulties, the bots have additional ‘Bonus Doom’ buffs, inspired by the doomed abilities of other champions:

1 Bomb – Our Doom Bots have been doomed with powerful mutations to their abilities.

2 Bombs – Congratulations! You’ve unlocked Bonus Doom! On each death, the bots will randomise a new Bonus Doom.

5 Bombs – Good luck. ^_^

As an aside, the Doom Bots (much like all our other bots) do not cheat with vision. They can only see what a normal player can given their ward coverage, minion waves, abilities (doomed or otherwise), etc.

Known issues:

-Some sounds and VO surrounding doomed abilities might not be playing. We’re working on these.

Let us know if you guys run into any issues (particularly with the 2 & 5 Bomb difficulties) and tell us about your games! There are 15 Doom Bots in total, so we wanna know, which team compositions are the hardest? Which Bonus Doom combos the best on which bots? Who is the hardest champion you’ve beaten them with? Let us hear your magical feedback!"

Here's some example shots of the game mode, which has you playing on a dark and spooky version of Summoner's Rift, and some of the many horrific doom abilities!

1 bomb ( "easy " )

5 bomb ( "good luck" )

The DOOM bots are all surrounded by an evil glow.

One of DOOM Veigar's abilities is his W drops in triple! He gains more and more on other difficulties

Doom Blitzcrank can fire three arms with his Q

Doom Galio shoots out an entire ring of his Q

and his E is three lines instead of one. Not pictured but he also random creates "taunt fields" that pull you to him.

DOOM enhancements can be seen via in-game buffs on the bots.

Here we have multiple Malzahar pools, a colossal Tibbers, and Ezreal tri shooting!

On 2 star and up, each bot can also get one or multiple "Bonus Dooms". These are extra abilities ( typically passive ) from another pool of champions, including having Swain's R's Raven drain permanently on, gaining Anivia's rebirth, having Garen's randomly pop out of any brush, leaving a constant Shyvana W trail, stealthing from Eve, laying down froze zones, limiting vision a la Nocturne, and so many more!

Sona Rework

Sona is getting an update to help her player satisfaction and drastically improve the clarity of what she does. This update is also going to be an experiment for development, where Sona is going to be getting to PBE much earlier in her development, meaning that we have a longer time to get your feedback and react to it. This means that feedback is going to be even more valuable for us than usual. Everything you all have is welcome, but there are a few points where we really want to hear from you:

Are the effects of Sona’s spells more clear?

Did you have difficulty using your auras to give allies your buffs?

Did this become easier late game/during team fighting?

Did you feel more able to support or save your allies?

Did you feel more able to survive all-ins during laning?

Did your spell casts feel more impactful?

Did you notice any bugs?

What items did you build?

What items felt very powerful?

What items felt less effective?

Were Sona’s spell effects more enjoyable?

Were Sona’s spell effects easier to understand?

Really looking forward to hearing from everyone!

Full Changelist below:

Passive - Power Chord:

Q Powerchord amplification down from +100% damage to +50% damage

Q - Hymn of Valor

Creates a 300 unit aura that lasts for 3 seconds.

Sona and allies touched by the aura get 40/50/60/70/80 (+0.25 AP) bonus magic damage on their next auto attack. Buff lasts 3 seconds

Each ally Sona tags with the aura increases the duration of the aura by 0.5 seconds

Cooldown increased to 10 seconds from 7 seconds

No longer grants persistent AP and AD aura

Mana cost increased by 5 at all ranks (50/55/60/65/70)

W - Aria of Perseverance

Initial cast heals Sona plus the lowest health nearby ally for 25/50/75/100/125 (+ 0.25 AP) heath. This heal is increased by 1% for each 1% missing health of the target.

Creates a 300 unit aura that lasts for 3 seconds.

Sona and her allies touched by the aura get a shield that blocks 40/60/80/100/120 (+0.2 AP) damage.

Each ally Sona tags with the aura increases the duration of the aura by 0.5 seconds

Cooldown increased to 10 seconds from 7 seconds

No longer grants persistent MR and Armor aura

Mana cost increased by 5 at all ranks (65/70/75/80/85)

E - Song of Celerity

Initial cast grants Sona a boost of 13%/14%/15%/16%/17% + (7.5% for every 100 AP) move speed. This decays down to the amount Sona grants to her allies.

Sona’s updated Audio and Visual Effects are still works in progress. These will be getting more polish over the days and weeks to come.

Sona's information in the client is not up to date with these changes

Sona bot is going to be really dumb until we can tell her about her new tricks"

Now let's take a look at the updated visual effects and tooltips!

Passive - Power ChordQ - Hymn of Valor

W - Aria of Perseverance

E - Song of Celerity

R - Crescendo

Here's a video of them all in action!

Mecha Aatrox Thruster Fixed

The little thruster on Mecha Aatrox's left wing has been fixed and now points in the proper direction in today's update. Here is an updated frontal and turnaround shot.

Exhaust VFX Update

The summoner spell Exhaust has had it's VFX updated, leaning back to it's old "can shaped" design.

Mecha Malphite Voice

Mecha Malphite now has an appropriately robot-y voice filter.... *unfortunately it doesn't seem to be hooked up in-game yet.

Summoner's Rift Update Monster Portraits

[ Again, these are not summoner icons. These are the portraits that display when you target them in-game ]

Great Murk Wolf, Murk Wolf, and Razorbeak

Summoner's Rift Update Assets

Several icons got updated, including Baron debuff's icon

"Baron_Debuff" 1 and 2

SuperMinion_Buff

Mecha Aatrox and Mecha Malphite Feedback Thread

Nurse Flan has posted up an official feedback thread for our new Mecha Aatrox and Mecha Malphite skins, which were made available for testing in the 7/1 PBE update.

"Aatrox and Malphite have been re-outfitted as Mechas! We're calling all Summoners who are ready and able to pilot them into the great unknown (THE PBE!)!

With their sleek mecha upgrades and hexagon program patterns, they're ready to take on any aerial or terrestrial targets! Check out their new parts!

Completely new model (all mecha!)

New particles for abilities!

New recalls! (they transform!)

New audio for VO and abilities (this may not be implemented on the PBE just yet, hang tight!)

As players who get the first look at this in-progress skin, it would be wonderful to hear your thoughts and feelings on the new Mecha skins! The feedback and bugs you leave here will help us get a better idea of things we may still have to take a look at. :] See you on the Rift!"

Balance Changes

* Remember *: The PBE is a testing grounds for new, tentative, and sometimes radical changes. The changes you see below may be lacking context or other accompanying changes that didn't make it in - don't freak out! These are not official notes.

Champions

Sona

Sona has received significant kit changes in today's update, including her aura's turning into short duration buff zones! See above or this thread by Fearless for more info.

Items

Bloodthirster

Unique Passive: +10% bonus attack damage has been REMOVED.

[ Context: None of the other changes introduced in the 7/1 update were removed ]

[[ While not in this update, ricklessabandon has posted up his tentative and experimental changes for Manamune and Muramana which will be coming to the PBE soon! Check out this link for more info. ]]

Miss out on previous updates from this PBE cycle? Check outTHIS PAGEfor a comprehensive list of the new content in this PBE cycle or catch up with the links below !